


Something That Explodes

by jouissant



Category: Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: Blood and Violence, Fighting, Frottage, Hate Sex, M/M, Missing Scene
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-18
Updated: 2015-10-18
Packaged: 2018-04-26 23:50:17
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,168
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5025478
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jouissant/pseuds/jouissant
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Gansey pays Kavinsky a visit before the Fourth of July.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Something That Explodes

**Author's Note:**

  * For [anirondack](https://archiveofourown.org/users/anirondack/gifts).



On July 1st, Ronan sat Gansey down in a revenant simulacrum of the Pig and told him about Kavinsky. Gansey slumped in the driver’s seat, the side of his face pressed to the warmth of the steering wheel. He felt his now-superfluous rage coalesce, flare brightly once and then diminish somewhere in his belly. 

When he went to bed later, destined not to sleep, he lay still and pressed his palm against the pulse below his navel. He turned the Pig over and over in his brain, feeling shivery and ill at ease. He imagined a bezoar, some evil clot of hair and fat and bile labeled K for Kavinsky and doomed to rot in his guts for eternity. Theirs wasn’t a noble, Welsh sort of enmity, thought Gansey. Or maybe it was; stuffing Kavinsky into a tree wouldn’t exactly go amiss. Or stabbing him, for that matter. He could really get into a good stabbing after this shit show of a weekend. 

_K is for knife_ , thought Gansey, and his fingers twitched uselessly. He closed his eyes and slept the kind of sleep that barely feels like unconsciousness at all. 

On July 2nd, Gansey woke up burning. 

He was half on the bed and half on the floor, his upturned cheek blazing in the sun that streamed in through the window. He was drooling on himself, and when he sat up he knew without looking that one side of his face would be creased and pink from the quilt. His scalp itched; he could feel sweat eke its way out into the roots of his matted hair. He wanted a shower. 

Ronan waited until Gansey was most of the way undressed before announcing his presence in the doorway. “Hey, baby,” he croaked. “You look like hell.” 

Which Gansey knew he was only saying because he himself looked decidedly hellish, probably even more so than Gansey did. The bad nights lent Gansey an unpolished, rough-hewn quality that he wore well, better even than the nights he got his beauty rest. Ronan’s bad nights made him look like something that had lately crawled out of a ditch. Although, thought Gansey, you couldn’t say he didn’t wear _that_ well, too. 

Ronan was looking at him. Gansey stood up straighter and set a hand to his hip, and after a long moment the tips of Ronan’s ears turned rosy and he ran his hand over what was left of his hair. 

“Kavinsky’s on the Fourth,” he said. It wasn’t quite a question.

Gansey coughed. “Yeah,” he said. “We’re not going.” 

Ronan shrugged. He was fiddling with his bracelets. Somewhere unseen his phone chimed. 

“Whatever. I can blow shit up any day of the year.” Ronan could split atoms in his sleep, cup a supernova in his palm and drag all that terrible power back with him on waking. Ronan was a flashbulb.

 _Your bomb,_ said Kavinsky in Gansey’s head. 

“Later,” Ronan said, retreating into the hallway. “I’m going out.” 

***

So Ronan went out, and late in the day Gansey went to see Kavinsky. He didn’t think Churchill had negotiated with Hitler. He suspected Ronan might be mistaking him for Chamberlain; he’d just scraped a C in AP European History, and that was with Gansey enlisting the transatlantic tutelage of Malory, who had something of a side interest.

The fairgrounds were baking, and Gansey thought the Pig might ignite spontaneously on arrival. He wasn’t exactly making a secret of himself. He rumbled in and took the Camaro on a lazy circuit, sending a dusty figure eight drifting into the air. When Kavinsky materialized he did so suddenly and without his regular entourage. He lurched out of the dust up to the driver’s side window and slapped the roof of the Pig. 

“Well shit,” he said. “I’ve gotta say, she looks good on you.” 

“Get in,” said Gansey. 

Kavinsky cocked his head. _Okay._ He came around the front of the car, dragging his fingers along the hood as he did so. Gansey was reminded of the way you’re supposed to pass close behind a horse. Hand on one flank, don’t give them a chance to kick. Well, Gansey had horses all right, and he could sure as hell kick. He fondled the gearshift and flexed his foot on the brake. 

Kavinsky settled beside him in the passenger seat, and Gansey regarded him in the baleful yellowish light. He was sallow, and not just on account of the waning sun. His skin was waxy, his eyes deep-set and bruised in a way that reminded Gansey nauseatingly of Ronan. 

Kavinsky smiled wide. “How’s our puppy?” 

Gansey took a deep, yogic breath in through his nose. _If you go to prison,_ he said to himself, _Mother will definitely lose the election._ This fact should possibly have been more of a deterrent than it was. 

Gansey gave the impression of studiously ignoring Kavinsky, and took out his checkbook. “What will it take for you to fuck off back where you came from?” he asked. 

Kavinsky smiled wider. “I love it when you talk dirty,” he said. 

He reached for the checkbook. It was beautifully functional in the way only very expensive things are, made of burnished leather the color of a croissant. Gansey’s checks nestled snugly inside and drew on the same personal account that paid the rent on Monmouth and bankrolled the wild quest for Glendower and shot like a vein of silver straight back through the bedrock of generations of Ganseys. This particular Gansey thought they’d all have been solidly behind his use of discretionary funds. Ridding Henrietta of Kavinsky was the best kind of investment. 

Kavinsky’s fingertips had just grazed the leather when Gansey snatched the checkbook neatly away. “Well?” he asked. 

“You’re funny,” Kavinsky said. “I could dream a hundred of you.” 

“Be that as it may,” said Gansey. 

“Money’s boring, Dick.” 

Kavinsky took out his phone and thumbed the touchscreen lazily. Gansey could see little green speech bubbles; a series of texts sent and thus far unacknowledged. Kavinsky hammered out another, chewing on his bottom lip as he did. 

“What, then?” Gansey asked. 

Even as he said the words he knew they were pointless. He knew this entire episode was pointless, and he’d known it from the start. He’d have done better to leave well enough alone. It was the flame, though, wasn’t it. Someone had lit a fuse, and there was no time to put it out now. Chuck it as far as you can and run. 

“I think we both know what,” said Kavinsky, and leered. 

With that, the fuse hissed down to its natural conclusion. Gansey jabbed at the button on his seatbelt and leapt from the Pig, the belt’s tongue clattering against the door. He was around the front of the car in a heartbeat, and he thought, as he dragged Kavinsky from the passenger seat, how curious it was that the other boy had simply waited for him to do so. 

“Woop woop,” Kavinsky huffed, Gansey’s hands at his collar. “You know things got a little crazy the other night. One of your crew girls almost took his own hand off. But I think they’ll be able to save it.”

“Shut up,” said Gansey. 

“Can’t throw a Molotov for shit, apparently. Not like you though, eh Gansey boy?” 

“Shut _up._ ” Gansey punctuated his request with a fist to Kavinsky’s nose, still purpled from Ronan’s blow at the substance party. Something about this thrilled Gansey. He felt a sudden startling pang of kinship with Ronan, and he also felt Kavinsky’s nasal bone give way beneath his knuckles. It hurt, and the pain lanced down between them as a signal along a wire. They moaned in stereo, and Gansey’s face flamed. 

“Fun, huh?” said Kavinsky, his voice a-bubble with blood. 

He lunged for Gansey, and the force brought the two of them crashing to the parched earth. They collapsed into a faded patch of crabgrass. Gansey had just enough time to suck in a breath and think that this was possibly very bad before Kavinsky gained the advantage, rolling on top of Gansey and taking what seemed like great pleasure in bleeding directly into his face. 

Gansey raised his hands on impulse and Kavinsky caught him by the wrists. He squirmed, his body pressed tight between Kavinsky and the ground, a wretched and serpentine motion that served no purpose other than to alert Gansey to the fact that Kavinsky was hard. 

“Get off of me,” Gansey spat. 

Kavinsky laughed. A fat splotch of blood hit Gansey square between the eyes and Kavinsky rolled his hips mockingly into Gansey’s. That felt about as good as punching him had, and produced the same animal sound. 

“There we go,” said Kavinsky. “There we go. Lie back and think of Lynch.” 

Gansey growled, thrust upward and yanked one hand free of Kavinsky’s slippery grasp. He got him around the back of the skull, clutching at the scruff of his neck. Gansey’s mouth was open; there was copper all down his throat. He ground their faces together in a vile parody of a kiss and scraped his teeth along Kavinsky’s jaw and thought furiously _no, no, I won’t think of anyone but you, of how I’m going to end you and how good it’s going to feel,_ and then he was making his mouth chew and spit those same words, biting them into Kavinsky’s neck, his shoulder. 

They writhed together in the blood and the dirt, and Gansey simmered. Kavinsky arched up like a cobra and took him by the shoulders, slammed him down hard enough to scare the air from his lungs. Gansey heaved and sputtered; when Kavinsky tried to drag him back down again Gansey elbowed him in the throat and clambered to his feet. The front of his pants was wet, and he was covered in Kavinsky’s blood. He ran for the Pig in a fugue of primitive horror, suddenly certain that if Kavinsky caught him he’d be torn apart. He got into the car and fumbled for the keys until he realized they were still in the ignition. He slammed into gear and was gone, a dirty haze fanning out behind him. In the rear view Kavinsky lay supine, his hand raised up, palm splayed red against the sky. The setting sun accosted Gansey as he turned the Pig homeward, and if his eyes began to water it was just the dust, the light. 

***

Ronan sat on the floor in Gansey’s room, leaning back against the bed. Gansey was cross-legged above him on the quilt, hair damp and downy, scoured within an inch of his life. He felt thoroughly extinguished. There was a scarlet crescent moon remaining beneath one fingernail, and he was excavating it with a stray bobby pin he’d found in the flotsam of his desk. He had a horrible feeling it might belong to Blue. 

“We saw Mom today,” said Ronan. He was looking at the ceiling. 

“Declan too?” asked Gansey. He scraped out a fleck of dried blood and flicked it into the canyon between the bed and the wall. 

“Nah. Me and Matthew.” 

Gansey nodded. He didn’t speak, but Ronan seemed to intuit a response anyway. 

“You think any more about Kavinsky?” he asked. 

Gansey thanked every deity he knew that Ronan yet hadn’t looked back at him. He felt sure his gulp was audible. “Huh?” 

Ronan did turn then, looking up at Gansey querulously. He was beginning to remind Gansey of Chainsaw, all darkness, all angles. He was wearing a beater the color of india ink and the line of his clavicle could give you a papercut. “Kavinsky,” he said again. “Sooner we get him off the ley line--” 

“Oh, yeah,” said Gansey. “That. Yeah. He’s impossible.” He set his hand on Ronan’s head, fitting his palm to the sutures of his skull. Some people thought Ronan looked dangerous like this. Gansey thought he looked like a shorn lamb. He shifted his weight forward and pressed down; Ronan dipped his chin to his chest and gave a small corresponding hum of pleasure. Gansey ran his thumb over the skin behind Ronan’s right ear. 

Ronan sighed. His eyes fell closed. Gansey thought that maybe tonight they’d fall asleep together in his big bed, side by side, and finally get some rest. 

“Thing is, we’re probably going to have to kill him,” Ronan said dreamily.

“Probably,” said Gansey. 

“Or like. Run him out on a rail,” said Ronan. “Anyway, no way he’s going to just back down. I don’t see how the fuck it’s going to happen.” 

“Well,” said Gansey. “I suppose we’ll have to come up with something.” 

“He’s an asshole,” Ronan said. He worried at his bracelets, and the two of them fell silent. Eventually Gansey slept, and if Ronan’s phone lit up in the night and if Ronan palmed it and slipped from Gansey’s room to sprawl on his own bed, the better to plot a dreamers’ war, Gansey was none the wiser.


End file.
